How Much Leakage Is Too Much?

Unknown

As an unscheduled day presented itself, I spent a little time torqueing

the cylinderhead nuts on the '26 side valve Super Six. The gasket between the

block and the head has a small wet spot, maybe two inches long just about

equal with the No. 5 cylinder on the left side. The spot had been bubbling

away merrily with tiny little bubbles like the ones in a good gin & tonic.

First I torqued the nuts to 50 lbs cold and found some considerable

movement on some of them. Another round to 60 lbs produced more movement.

With the help of a cardboard in front of the radiator, the motor was

carefully and lovingly warmed up. (Actually, it boiled while I was distracted

talking birding tactics with the cat.)

Well, now that it was good and hot, I torqued it again, and this produced

some significant movement on some of the nuts. After another restart (and

radiator refill), the bubbling has been cut to almost, but not quite nothing.

I'm going to let it cool some and then go tackle it again to see if there

might be more improvement. Assuming that there is still SOME leakage, the

question arises as to how much is too much. The tiny bit of coolant loss

doesn't worry me, but coolant contamination and mating surface rust does. I

have been told that exhaust leaks into coolant can produce a corrosive

solution.

It is very easy to get to the motor to work on it now, but I hate to

waste a new headgasket if I don't need to as they are getting rather scarce.

The motor is mounted on a test stand and the leak is evident at idle with no

load. I can only fret that under heavy work like pulling a long hill in top

gear that the leaking might be worse, although I sure don't know how to prove

it!

What do you think? Should I have the head off and do it right while it's

out in the open, (although even installed in the car wouldn't be too bad), or

just wait and see if it stops on it's own?







Paul O'Neil, Hudson29@aol.com

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